"It is so important for a family to celebrate all together. It is so important for the children to laugh and play and sing with their parents and to see their parents happy to be together…"    Jean Vanier, Community and Growth

We have just come through a beautiful holiday weekend, and I pray that you all had time to celebrate being family together. In our often hectic, scheduled lives, there has to be time to relax our schedules and take time to just 'be'. At our house this weekend, seven grandchildren between the ages of 3 and 10 came for a sleepover! What delight as we spent 2 full days playing, laughing and even singing. Together we installed a 'new to us' playground set, went for a tractor and wagon ride to the creek for a campfire and hotdog supper, threw sticks into the water, explored and hunted for 'the enemy' along the creek bank, ran through the fields practicing for track and field events (well…the kids did!), played games, read stories, watched movies, talked and laughed. My husband and I marvelled at the kids' energy and their imaginations as they invented games together, as they played 'Hide and Seek' in the hay field, organized a soccer match, as they play-wrestled on the lawn. Times like these we treasure! Makes me wonder - does God delight in us His children like this too? He sure does! Zephaniah 3:17 says:

"The LORD….will take great delight in you;

    in his love …will rejoice over you with singing."

Praying that this will be a week full of laughter and delight for us all - even if it's not a holiday weekend!

Mrs. Huinink-Buiter